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In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing. – Economist Assar Lindbeck, which seems a timely reminder in view of this absurdity. Some actually take the view it is worse than bombing. July 20th, 2019 | 15 comments
 I have a friend, let’s call her Karen. Karen bootstrapped several Portland businesses, including a coffee shop. She walks in one day and the barista, who is trans, says she had a man come in earlier wearing a MAGA cap and is she obliged to serve people like him? Karen asks, did he say something to you? No, says the barista, but he’s a white supremacist. Karen tells her, first, you don’t know that, and second, you cannot discriminate based on the way someone is dressed. And that, Karen thinks, is that, but no, the barista relays the story to another barista we will call Jen, who goes onto Facebook and posts, “My boss Karen is a Nazi.” Karen learns of this while she is on vacation. She calls her manager and tells her to get Jen into the office. Jen may intuit as much, as when the manager says she needs to speak with her, Jen gets on the floor behind the espresso bar and curls into a fetal position. And you might think, if anyone should maybe not be in customer service, it’s Jen, but no, people prove sympathetic to her and the other barista’s fears and start an online inquisition and can Karen prove she is not a Nazi? And should she not be more concerned with the safety of her employees than some random Republican wanting a cup of coffee? – Nancy Rommelmann, from ‘Portlandization: It can happen to a place near you‘ July 12th, 2019 | 93 comments
Samizdata is a site that writes about things from a primarily libertarian perspective (which means different things to different people, of course). But the issue firmly wedged in the minds of many people here is not a libertarian/non-libertarian issue, it is political, and it has split the samizdatistas much as it has split the UK. Brexit. Samizdata needs to get back to writing the kind of things it has always done, and will continue to do, but that does not mean the overtly political stuff is not worth saying… just not here. Not on samizdata. After much pondering, I have decided it just isn’t what this site should be about. And that is why we now have The Great Realignment, an overtly political site in its very early days for all the various things that do not really fit on samizdata. It is not a replacement, it is a fork in our particular road. I believe that we are now entering a period in which many of the assumptions that have underpinned the UK’s political order are no longer true, but the politics we see have not yet adjusted to this uncertain half-glimpsed future. This is what we will be discussing, with a UK focus, but we may well look at similar realignments elsewhere. Check it out. July 11th, 2019 | 25 comments
Government crowds out productive research by betting on the wrong horses—those who seek funding by dipping their hands in the public till. As Ridley puts it, “If the government spends money on the wrong kind of science, it tends to stop people working on the right kind of science.” Before you cheer for politicians promising medical breakthroughs, realise their actions may prevent the discovery of cancer cures. June 30th, 2019 | 10 comments
John Alcock and Arthur Brown flew non-stop across the Atlantic in a modified Vickers Vimy, taking off in Newfoundland, Canada and making an incommodious but non-fatal landing in Connemara, Ireland.  June 15th, 2019 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
I was walking down a London street today and came upon a reminder that the reason Donald Trump is visiting the UK is not entirely about current affairs. And whatever you think of him personally, it is worth remembering why he is here.
June 3rd, 2019 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said. Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.” The only economic model in the last 150 years that has ever worked at all is capitalism. – quoting the remarks of Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, in 2015. h/t David Bolton May 3rd, 2019 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is pretty damn funny, in a painful and excruciating way. But just for fun, now just imagine it was Trump, not Trudeau. It would be all you read about on the front page of every major newspaper and all you heard for a week on every single TV channel (remember them?) and radio station. April 29th, 2019 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Mr Putin said people living in Donetsk and Luhansk who considered themselves Russian were entitled to Russian passports. On Saturday, he said: “We’re considering providing a simplified procedure [of obtaining Russian citizenship] to all the residents of Ukraine.” How did Ukraine respond? Mr Zelensky said a Russian passport provides “the right to be arrested for a peaceful protest” and “the right not to have free and competitive elections.” I am starting to cautiously warm to Mr Zelensky. April 28th, 2019 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I found the term used in this Instapundit article as interesting as the short article itself. Corbynization: now in use outside the UK to describe the mainstreaming of institutional anti-Semitism. April 27th, 2019 | 56 comments - (Comments are closed)
Much beer will flow today… April 23rd, 2019 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
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